The Establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic

Throughout the centuries of foreign rule, the Czechs were
subjected, at times, to intense Germanization and the Slovaks to
Magyarization; nevertheless, both maintained their ethnic
identities, and during the collapse of empires and kingdoms that
accompanied World War I, they seized the opportunity for
independence. During the war, Czechs and Slovaks in large numbers
deserted the armies of Austria and Hungary, respectively, to form
the Czechoslovak Legion, military units that fought for the
Allied powers in the hope that they were contributing to their
own national liberation. The largest Czechoslovak units were
formed on the eastern front, but the Russians did not trust them
and, until the overthrow of the tsar, did not commit them to
battle.

During the period of the Provisional Government in Russia,
Alexander Kerensky, then minister of war, allowed General Aleksei
Brusilov to include Czechoslovak units in his army as he prepared
for a major Russian offensive in June 1917. Russian units,
pressured by the Bolsheviks, refused to fight; but the
Czechoslovak soldiers, motivated by dreams of a free homeland,
fought valiantly. At the Battle of Zborov on the Galician front,
they broke through Austro-Hungarian lines and captured more than
4,000 of the enemy, including about 60 officers. They also
captured several artillery pieces and machine guns plus
quantities of ammunition and supplies. The cost in casualties at
Zborov was high--almost 200 killed and 700 wounded--but the taste
of victory was sweet and was heightened by the presence in Russia
of Tomas Masaryk.

With the collapse of the eastern front imminent, Masaryk in
Russia and Eduard Benes in France desperately tried to arrange a
plan whereby the Czechoslovak Legion would be evacuated through
Archangel and shipped to France, where it would be employed in
the Allied cause. After the Bolshevik takeover, when the
Czechoslovak leaders deemed it impossible to evacuate such a
large force through northern Russia, a new plan called for the
legion to travel across Siberia to Vladivostok and cross the
Pacific, North America, and the Atlantic to France, where it
would be committed to combat. At first the Bolsheviks, desirous
of ridding the country of such a large foreign armed force,
approved of the evacuation through Siberia, with the stipulation
that the Czechoslovak units give up their weapons. Refusing the
order to disarm, the legionnaires clashed with the Red Army.
Because the 40,000 to 60,000 Czechoslovak troops constituted the
strongest force between European Russia and the Pacific Coast,
they were able to take control of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, a
move necessary to protect their route of departure. Merely by
their presence along the strategic railroad, the legionnaires
became an important element in the Russian civil war and
frequently fought against the Soviet troops. When the war in
Europe ended, Czechoslovakia gained independence, and Allied
armies intervened in Russia before the last unit of the
Czechoslovak Legion was repatriated.

The republic that encompassed the former Czech lands--Bohemia
and Moravia--as well as Slovakia and Ruthenia (also known as
Subcarpathian Ruthenia) created an army in 1918 and an air force
two years later. Personnel for these forces were recruited from
the legions that had fought in Russia, Italy, and France, as well
as from the demobilized troops of the defeated Austro-Hungarian
armies. Many of the problems of multinationalism that had plagued
the Hapsburgs were passed on to the successor states and to their
armed forces. The new Czechoslovak forces mirrored the ethnic
groups from which they were drawn--Czechs, Germans, Slovaks,
Hungarians, and Ruthenians (Ukrainians), plus much smaller
numbers of Jews, Poles, and Romanians. (Most Jews had been
assimilated and were not categorized as a minority in the armed
forces.) Ethnic strength in the forces generally reflected
percentages in the population, although Czechs were
overrepresented, particularly in the officer corps, which they
dominated. Although outright discrimination by the Czechs against
minorities was not tolerated, ethnic friction did exist, and the
question of reliability worried the Czech-controlled general
staff and defense ministry.

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